


Your place in the order of things

by boarsnsmores



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5787481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boarsnsmores/pseuds/boarsnsmores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulan finds purpose again, here in Storybrooke where there are still laws to be kept and order to be had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your place in the order of things

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble I wrote as a preface to [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5787394) but it became its own thing.
> 
> I thought the title was a song lyric but a very superficial google search tells me no.
> 
> I really wanted Mulan in Storybrooke, among other things, so here we are.

Mulan sees Emma for the first time in this land when she enters the Rabbit Hole, looking particularly official as her eyes sweep the room. Also kind of fuzzy around the edges, and maybe glowing like she imagines a savior should, under the backlighting of the streetlamps outside. The latter talk is the alcohol talking, she's sure of it, even if the beer here might as well be water.

Emma notices her and walks over. "Hey, uh, maybe you've had enough?" she asks with as much authority she can muster, that is to say, not that much by nature and less so because she's also eyeing the sword Mulan keeps with her. She's better at hiding her worry than the barkeep is though.

They both stare at the dubious number of bottles in this corner Mulan's requisitioned.

"No. I can handle my alcohol, if this can even be called that." Mulan answers, making sure she sharply pronounces each word so that Emma knows just how sober she is.

"I'm sure," Emma acquiesces, "but shouldn't you be, I dunno, out there protecting people or something? And not here scaring the bartender with your very lethal sword?"

Mulan shakes her head and downs the rest of this beer, motioning for another one and glaring at the barkeep when he remains where he is, the entire distance of the counter away.

"Okay, well, maybe not, but what if Storybrooke gets a plague of magic-y creatures and we need you to go out there and kill things because I only have one gun and I don't want to throw it at anything? Let's keep watch for the next lethal threat at the station, yeah?"

Watch sounds like a good idea, so Mulan fumbles some coins out of her pouch and the barkeep looks at them suspiciously, but a look from Emma has him sweeping them off the counter, debt settled. (The gold rate is probably favorable; not that Mulan would know that.)

Emma puts her up in one of the cells and hands her a glass of water, which she downs gratefully. The station is quiet, the only sound between them the hum of the lights and Emma occasionally shuffling papers around (not writing anything, just shuffling). She's warm and alcohol has loosed her tongue so she says "There's nothing. No Aurora or Phillip, no Merry Men. No Chin."

If her voice breaks, Emma doesn't say anything, just looks at her with not-pity and Mulan is thankful for small favors. She closes her eyes and slips into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Emma's there when she wakes up the next morning more hungover than she's ever been and she flushes slightly, embarrassed at her behavior the night prior. "Emma, that- I'm- it wasn't-"

Emma just shrugs, "Happens to the best of us. Maybe not too often though, yea?" She's looking to Mulan for agreement so Mulan nods and Emma unlocks the door to let her out.

She almost makes it to the door before Emma speaks again, "So, I was thinking."

Mulan doesn't know much about Emma personally, but from what she's seen, this can't possibly lead anywhere good. Still, she owes it to Emma to at least hear her out so she removes her hand from the doorknob and turns around, waiting for Emma to speak again.

"Well, Mary Margaret's got that kid on the way-" a slight hitch, slight enough that Mulan doubts anyone else would have noticed but she didn't save Chin by not noticing these kinds of things, "so David needs to start dealing with that too and that leaves me short a deputy. I dunno what you're doing these days, but would you be interested in taking the job?"

It's an out, Mulan recognizes this too, but she's been rudderless too long and this is too strong a temptation.

"It would be an honor to protect Storybrooke."

* * *

"So this is your desk." Emma gestures to the desk that sits across from the cells. It's covered in paperwork, all half-filled, and topped with an aged sticky note that reads 'To-Do'. Emma scoops up the papers, ruining whatever organization system she may have had and dumps it on her own desk, "It's got a phone and everything so....yeah."

Emma is spectacularly vague about her new responsibilities. "So what does this job require of me?" she asks because if she doesn't, Emma may never tell her and she'll be no better off.

A painfully elongated "Ummmmmm" and then "Well, it used to be that we just wrote parking tickets and saved legally own pets from trees. We still do that, but now we also have to make sure people don't kill each other or weird things from portals don't kill people too. It's a lot of sitting around, to be honest. Less so than before I, uh, well, broke the curse, but more now that nothing's threatening to I dunno, erase our existence or whatever. It's kind of a nice break."

That was....not as helpful as Mulan wanted but she can't imagine that someone like the Evil Queen would have created a lawless town so she just nods and when she's free from Emma's attention, she digs through what she thinks is a storeroom until she pulls out a dusty binder labelled 'Storybrooke Sheriff's Department SOP'. Judging from its convenient place stuck behind a file cabinet filled with untouched paperwork, Mulan assumes that Emma's never opened this binder.

Mulan's time as a soldier and a guard make her well suited for keeping order, the same way Emma Swan's past makes her well suited for justice in order's stead. She watches as Emma props her feet up on her desk and then dozes off. No, Emma Swan is not suited for keeping order, not the way Mulan is. Justice, perhaps, as befitting of her station, but never order.

There is a place for her here, keeping order in this town where the laws still mean something.

**Author's Note:**

> Here and on [tumblr](http://boarsnsmores.tumblr.com/). Comments/critiques/headcanons/prompts welcome.


End file.
